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THE EAST ANGLIAN TIMBER WILLOW. 
ALTHOUGH all authorities differ as to the proper classification 
of the different timber willows, botanists now seem to agree 
that there are only two species grown in this country for 
timber : the Salix alba and the Salix fragilis, each with sub- 
varieties and with hybrid forms. The willow has always been 
called a critical genus, and according to Loudon has been a 
stumbling-block from the time of Linnaeus. The Germans 
have tabulated about 400 sub-varieties and hybrids, and there 
is no reason why this number should not be indefinitely 
augmented. The London Catalogue ( Ordine E. F. Linton) has 
ninety-three varieties. 
Botanical Variations. 
The varieties are determined by the buds, stipules, catkins, 
&c., and these are sometimes very inconstant, and thus very 
difficult to recognise. To some extent the difficulty is also due 
to the fact that leaves on the shoots of young sets and pollards 
are different from those on the maturer tree. Not only do the 
leaves of the same tree differ in appearance at various periods 
of the year, but exposure to wind and light makes an appreciable 
difference in their colour. There seems also no doubt that the 
soil in which a willow is planted has a very great influence not 
only on the size and colour of its leaves, but also upon the 
colour and quality of its timber and bark. 
The older practical writers, in dealing with these two timber 
willows, do not give a very close description of their character- 
istics, confining themselves chiefly to general advice as to how 
to plant and maintain. No mention whatever is made by them 
as to the appearance of the winter buds, but Lord Avebury in 
his Buds and, Stipules , 1899, page 112, says : — 
“ The winter buds of the white willow (/Salix alba ) are all axillary. The 
buds are oblong, obtuse, or sub-acute, compressed antero-posteriorly, but tumid 
on the anterior face, thickened on the edges, and have a thickened suture along 
the middle of the posterior aspect. The cup-like scale seems to consist of two 
leaves united ; these thickened edges and the strong slightly branched nerve 
usually seen on the inner face of these thickened edges tend to support this 
view, but no suture is discernible on the anterior face. The ovary of the Salix 
alba is sessile, that is, the seed pod is attached closely to the stem of the catkin ; 
in the f ragilis it is attached by a comparatively long pedicel or stalk, and in 
the viridis by a shorter pedicel.” 
James Brown describes the Salix alba thus : “ Leaves 
elliptic lanceolate, acute serrated, permanently silky on both 
sides ; the lower serratures glandular, stamens hairy, stigmas 
